5 Things We Have at Home That Some Don't by Gianna
As you probably know, lately we’ve been doing mission work in Belize, and today I’m going to share about five things that we have at home that others don’t, especially in Central America.
1.
A working car
As you may know, people have talked about the car we
borrowed, “The Gold Van”/”Nugget II.” Also, before we even had a car, we had to
walk the long walk to church (30+ minutes through traffic and a huge amount of
water). So, by the time we got there, just before Mass should start, we would
all be a sweaty mess. Where at home, we have the privilege of an eight-minute
walk to church.
Sometimes we were lucky enough to get a ride from fellow
people who were also going to Mass. At the church where we went to mass (Divine
Mercy Church), daily Mass was early in the morning, even more early, than at
home. When we got the car, as others have said, it was a very big upgrade from
walking.
But there were many issues - like the gears were basically
just made up, it really didn’t have much momentum, and we were always getting
stuck on speedbumps. The worst was there was construction going on by our house
and there was a big speedbump, or mini hill, that we would always get stuck on
(honestly, you really didn’t have a prayer). So, we would have to wake up extra
early, or sometimes be late.
When we got back to the states, the first thing we said to
our older brother who was picking us up from the airport was “Look! A working
car.” I also realized I had never been so appreciative of back-up cameras in my
life.
From all the time I was in Belize I never had the privilege
of hot showers - period. You may be surprised at what I will say next. I really
don’t think we needed hot showers.
It was hot enough in Belize that it didn’t really bother me.
In order to take a shower when you weren’t sweating, you would have to take it
early in the morning, or late at night, when or before it gets oppressively
hot.
Now I go back on saying that it was a shower, because it was
a shallow stone bathtub, that we had to dump buckets of water on us, or use a
pitcher.
It doesn’t bother me because I know many people have to take
cold showers (like in Guatemala where the weather was much cooler) or don’t have
access to showers at all. Although I might splurge and take a hot bath every
now and then - not in four months have I enjoyed a bath.
If you want to do mission work in Belize, at the very least,
you’ll have to get used to life with dirty work. What do I mean by this? Well,
if you are living where we were in Belize (that is the blue house), or in a
condition likewise, dirty work is part of everyday life.
The blue house was surrounded by sand, dirt, and clay. Not
one tree in sight. If it should rain, the whole yard would be yucky, but this
was certainly not the worst part. You would be lucky if ONLY the yard was yucky, not to mention if the house should have
a mini flood. And one time it did. It was a complete disaster, and by the time
we had done the bare minimum mopping/cleaning, we were (or at least I was) completely
exhausted.
Then, we would wake up and find that it was still leaking a
bit and have to deal with that. There are other jobs, like picking up countless
buckets of liter or trash around the park, or having clay completely caked on
to your shoes, and having to wash your feet countless times before going to
bed, so that you won’t get the white sheets (which were black after about a
week) dirty.
One time, mom designed a mini wash station outside the front
door to wash our feet when we were coming in the house, that soon became the
home of frogs and toads and was not usable anymore.
Also, it was not just dirty outside, but always very dirty
inside, which led to multiple sweepings a day.
4. Laundry machines
Also in Belize, we had to get used to… HANDWASHING ALL LAUNDRY! When we first
moved into the blue house, we were *washing all our dishes in a plastic sink meant
for washing clothes. So, we did all our clothes washing in the bathtub, in big
tubs, that eventually “walked away” (from people being careless and leaving
them outside).
I was the main one doing the family’s laundry, and I enjoyed it.
We had a scrub brush, and a brick of pink soap to wash with. You would have to
hang it outside, on the clothesline we managed to rig up. The garments or
clothes needed to be wrung out very much, which is difficult for small people
who have small hands, like me. The good news is, normally at home it usually
takes a day or two for hanging clothes to dry, but in Belize it would only take
like 45 minutes to an hour.
*At home we have the luxury of a dishwashing machine, in Belize,
that was not a thing for us. Therefore, we washed all dishes by hand.
The tap water and drinking water in Belize is not hot, but
also not cold. It’s somewhere between lukewarm, and warm. You can use tap water
to wash your hands, brush your teeth, wash clothes, and boil water for coffee
or tea.
You have to get purified water from the store (or sometimes
there’s just machines in random places along the road), which comes in five-gallon
jugs, which are very heavy. You can get them for cheap, $1 or $2 American. You can
fill them up in a very interesting machine that, sometimes, if the jug is a bit
smaller than normal, overflows. It is hard enough to drag them to the car, and
I can’t imagine doing it if you have to walk.
You have to drink a lot of water every day, and also use the
water for preparing meals and other times you need clean water. We only had two
jugs, and one time we almost ran out of water when Autumn was sick, and that
was very scary.
All in all, our mission work in Belize taught me that there are so many small privileges that we have at home that most Belizeans would consider for rich people. Even if you can’t go to other countries to do mission work, we can all pray and sacrifice some of our comforts to share more of what we have with the poor.
God bless,
Gianna
